Sunday, 4 December 2011

North London & Me

A year ago last Saturday, I closed the door on my lovely little flat in Brighton for the last time. I did wonder if I'd done the right thing when I saw the squirrels on the tree outside my bedroom window, said goodbye to my lovely neighbour Roy and looked down on the pretty garden downstairs. A year on and I know I did the right thing.

I think perhaps that things are meant to happen for a reason. Perhaps I was meant to leave my great job at Linden Lab, perhaps I was meant to meet that person that saw visits to London again, perhaps it was fate that there were no jobs in Brighton that I wanted to do. Who knows?

It really was Plan Z in my life that I moved back to London after 11 years away. I got stuck into Brighton life, had a good group of friends, a good job and really no need to leave. Then my office closed suddenly and 25 of us had big decisions to make. Maybe if I could have afforded to take a job as an Admin Assistant and work for £18k, I'd have stayed....but maybe not. It was such a sudden decision to move back but that's how I roll!!!!

As is my life, I just happened to write to a company in Bayswater that were looking for an Office Manager at that very second. They hadn't even advertised a job but the timing was right. I got the job and had a month to pack up my flat and find a new home in London. Fate again - I came up to Crouch End to look at two flats that day, two flats that fell through as the landlord hadn't allowed access...but 5 mins before I arrived, another flat had come onto the market - the flat I'm in now, the flat that happened to be in the street I wanted to live in. If only life is always that easy....

So here we are, a year later....no longer in the job I got but happier working freelance, enjoying my flat & the block I'm in, and loving life in Crouch End. I really couldn't have chosen a nicer place to live. Yes I am a snobby N8 resident and long may it continue. I love Dunns Bakery, seeing C listers in the street, having my oldest & one of my best friends just down the road.

Brighton will always have a huge place in my heart.....but Crouch End, I'm very happy to have met you!